Solid Ground
by ClaudiaRain
Summary: Tag to The Future Job. Parker thought ensuring Dalton Rand was punished would be enough. She was wrong. Nate/Parker


Title: Solid Ground

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage or its characters and I make no profit from this. It's just for fun.

Spoilers: Up through 2.13, The Future Job

Pairing: Nate/Parker

Author's note: Tag to The Future Job. You could probably read this without seeing that episode, but it will make a lot more sense if you've seen it.

Since I can't seem to finish any longer stories I'm working on, I wrote something new instead. Special thanks to all who've reviewed and added my stories, especially Against the Evening Sky (you motivated me to write this one) and to my friend Erin for reading everything I write even though she doesn't really get N/P – she can't deny that I'm bringing her around.

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The end of this job felt wonderful, better than any they'd had in a long time, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. It had become personal for her, something that almost never happened. So she was happy it was over, and it had ended well, they'd gotten justice and she'd gotten her own personal revenge watching Dalton Rand turn from psychic charlatan to exposed fraud (with plenty of jail time thrown in, she hoped).

But despite how happy she was, she still felt the lingering sense of despair. It took only 3 minutes in Rand's audience to dredge up memories she'd tried to forget for over fifteen years. The worst part was that trying to ignore those memories had been working, too – until Dalton Rand.

She hadn't been joking when she'd said she wanted to destroy him, she would have been happy if he stopped breathing entirely. She suspected her team knew that, as well.

Which was why watching him get thrown into the back of a police car, secure in the knowledge he would pay for at least some of his sins, wasn't enough to feel she'd been cleansed of her own.

During the con she'd had someone to focus her hatred on and something to strive for – his downfall. And now that he was gone, she had no one else to look to anymore. It all came back to where it had been for most of her life – on herself.

Foolishly, she'd allowed herself to believe that getting rid of the man who had exposed those memories for everyone to see (including herself) would be enough to make them somehow more bearable.

Of course, that wasn't true, and never had been.

Now she was stuck with grief, anger, and self-loathing as agonizing as they'd been the day her brother had died, and absolutely no idea what to do with it. She didn't know how to make it go away, and in her most desperate moments, was terrified it never would.

Which would have served her right anyways, because no matter what the others had said, she still felt those were feelings she deserved for the part she'd played in his death. She should be thankful she could _have_ feelings, right? Her brother certainly hadn't been able to feel anything since he died. He'd probably kill to –

She shook her head at her own thoughts, because every time she thought she couldn't hate herself any more, she just proved herself wrong.

She watched until the police cars were out of sight.

"Parker, you coming?" The underlying irritation in Hardison's voice informed her he'd probably called her name a half dozen times. He was holding the van door open for her, but she had no desire to be around others right then.

"No, I'm going to walk," she told him.

"Where? Home? That's impossible!" He informed her, but she was already leaving.

"I want to be alone," she called back to him, ignoring the rest of his protests.

When she heard someone walking behind her a few minutes later, she didn't bother turning around. She knew who it was.

"That wasn't a personal appeal to see who could ignore me the fastest, Nate."

"Where are you going?" He asked quietly.

"Away. Away from people! Do I need to define 'alone' for you? Again?"

"I'm worried about you. We all are."

"Well, don't be," she finally turned to face him. "I'm not going back with you."

He shrugged, as if it didn't matter what she did, which almost made her smile. Because if it didn't matter, he wouldn't be here. "The others already left," he gestured behind him. Sure enough, their van was gone.

"_Some _people listen to me then," she muttered, even as her heart sank a bit. _Don't complain when you get what you asked for_, she reminded herself.

Nate hadn't left, though, right? Oh, right. He was trying to convince her that she shouldn't be alone. "It's getting late, why don't we go back to the bar? Unwind? We can talk."

"I don't need to unwind," she informed him. "And I don't want to talk." In fact, not only did she not want to talk about it, she didn't want to think about it. That way laid darkness.

"You're talking to me right now," he cajoled.

"Trying to convince you to go away!" She sighed and crossed her arms, trying to get her point across. Wondering if she even knew what that point was.

Nate was silent for a moment, leaning back against the building they'd come to a stop next to. "We both know if you really wanted to be alone you would have slipped away when no one was looking."

"You were all right there," she said, eyes alighting a bit at the challenge.

He continued as if she had said nothing. "Nor would you have slowed down enough to let me catch you."

"Maybe I'm just polite," she argued, albeit half-heartedly.

The look he gave her told her they both knew how ridiculous that excuse was. She sighed in reluctant acquiescence and shut her eyes.

"I know this was a hard one for you. All I want to know is that you're okay."

"I'm fine," she said, though she needn't have bothered. They both knew she wasn't.

"Parker –" he began, reaching out to touch her arm, but she wrenched herself out of his reach and stalked a few steps away before whirling to face him.

"Don't you get it? There's nothing you can do for me. There's nothing _anyone _can do for me. It is what it is, Nate. I can't go back and change it. I can't fix the things that went wrong in life. I can't bring back –" She abruptly stopped and rubbed her forehead wearily.

"No one can bring back the people they lost," he took a step toward her, sadness in his eyes that probably matched her own. "That's what's terrible about being alive. But you know this already. Don't let him do this to you – don't let Dalton Rand send you into a spiraling depression because of your old guilt about something that couldn't be changed. It is what it is, Parker. You said it yourself."

She sat down on the nearest bench and surveyed the street around them. It was eerily quiet, almost as if the universe knew she needed to have this conversation and wasn't willing to interrupt it. And that was a crazy thought, indeed. She must be talking to Sophie too much.

Nate sat carefully next to her, but he was tense, as if he were ready to jump up if she did. She wanted to tell him not to worry, because she was sick of always running. It was so damn tiring.

"I thought seeing this through to the end, watching Rand suffer, would be enough to make me feel better. Instead, I only feel worse. Because now the distraction is gone and all I'm left with are memories. You can't make it better!"

When he spoke, she almost couldn't hear him. "No, I can't. But I know…what it's like."

And he did, didn't he? Here she was, acting as if her grief were the only thing that mattered. How often she forgot that everyone else suffered, too. She suddenly felt petty, and small.

"I didn't mean –"

"No," he stopped her. "There's no contest here for who grieves the most. I know what you meant, and I've felt that way before. It's why we do what we do. The world's incredibly unfair in who it takes from our lives. And what we do, it's a way of tipping the scales back. Righting some of the wrongs. At least, that's what it is to me."

She felt tears come to her eyes and looked away from him, back down the deserted street. What could she say to that? She felt the exact same way. What's more, she knew that he knew it, too.

"You know what I think, Parker?"

"You're going to tell me regardless of whether I want to know," she said, glancing back at him, surprised to find him smiling.

"You're so used to being alone that it's become an automatic response. You don't think to come to me or anyone else because it simply doesn't cross your mind. But you're not alone anymore, Parker. Do you know that?"

"Of course," she said quickly. Too quickly.

"_Do you know that_?" He asked again with deliberate slowness.

She searched his eyes for a minute. Intellectually, she knew what he said was true. But maybe she'd never really felt it, not where it mattered.

"Yes, I know," she whispered. They both heard the unspoken '_now'_ at the end of her words.

He nodded in approval and she felt herself becoming uncharacteristically embarrassed. To cover it she slid closer to him and asked, "Do _you_?"

He leaned back on the bench, his eyes darkening. "We're not talking about me."

"Maybe we should be," she said lightly. "It goes both ways."

Just as she'd done, he spent a moment simply looking at her. "Yes, I know I'm not alone," he said, letting her know that he accepted her tentative offer, and approved. "I once heard a wise woman say that sometimes friends are the only family you get."

She swallowed, remembering her words from not so long before.

He reached out a finger to brush a strand of her hair out of her face. "You said it, but I don't think you really believed it. Maybe you wanted to, but with how you keep running away…it doesn't only hurt you. It hurts me. It hurts all of us."

Her mouth had gone dry. "I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologize. Just…think about what I said. _Believe_ what I said."

She knew he was right. "There are still times, though, when I'll want to be alone. When I _have _to be alone. Do you understand that?"

He nodded. "I get that, everyone needs that sometimes. I do, too. Today I couldn't let you go, though, not unless I made sure you knew we were there for you. If you still want to be alone for awhile I'll head back."

He moved to stand but she quickly held his arm, pulling him back. "No, you don't have to go. It's kind of nice being out here alone…together." She smiled and he returned it.

Parker couldn't believe her day had done a 180 so quickly. She'd been intent on going off to lick her wounds in solace for a week or twelve, and suddenly she felt lighter than she had in years. Oh, she knew it would never go away. She would never stop missing her brother, but for the first time she believed that she'd be able to think of him one day without the sharp pain that always accompanied those memories.

And the more she thought about the conversation she'd had with Nate, the more exposed she felt. She was grateful, but it made her wonder if intimacy with other people was really worth it. "This is why I make sure things don't get personal. Things are always worse when they're personal," she lamented, looking anywhere but at him. She didn't know if she was talking about the con or their conversation. Probably both.

She jumped when he drew his finger down her arm, and turned to him with surprise and confusion.

"Are things _always _worse when they're personal?" He asked, half-teasing, half-serious. She froze for a moment, wondering if she imagined the subtext to his question. Was she really losing it? Maybe she'd fallen and hit her head, and this entire exchange – the whole conversation – had only taken place in her unconscious mind.

He took advantage of her surprise and kissed her gently, so quick she might have imagined it. Or dreamed it. She still wasn't ruling out unconsciousness.

She didn't know if she'd ever felt her heart beating so fast. What the hell was _wrong_ with her? And what was she supposed to say? A path she'd never really considered suddenly lay open to her and while that surprised her, the fact that she _wanted _it downright floored her. How was it possible, she wondered fleetingly, to not know something so important about yourself?

"Well?" He asked finally, and she belatedly realized he was still waiting for an answer to his question.

"Maybe sometimes personal is okay," she whispered.

"Maybe? Sometimes? _Okay_?" He was only pretending to be offended, but she leaned in to kiss him again anyway.

"Alright, it's more than okay," she said, her tone indicating she was incredibly put out by having to make such a confession.

"I love you, too," he said, so casually that he must have meant it, and the breath caught in her throat. He seemed not to realize as he flipped open his phone and told Hardison to come pick them up.

She shook herself out of a daze. "I thought they went home?"

"Nah, they're around the corner getting something to eat." They stood to walk back the way they'd come, and sure enough, the van soon appeared at the end of the road. "They were adamant about not leaving without you, so I told them to make themselves scarce until I convinced you."

She pressed her lips together, whether to hide a frown or a smile she couldn't say. "Pretty sure of yourself, are you?"

"I have to be," he leaned down to whisper in her ear, as if he were imparting a secret. "I'm a con man."

His words were like ice water, waking her up from a dream she didn't deserve to be having. "I didn't forget," she said stiffly.

He heard the change in her voice and stopped walking, turning her to face him. "Not with you," he said firmly, pulling her closer.

She tried to pretend she had no clue what he was talking about, even as she knew it had never worked with him before, so it had virtually no chance right then. "I don't –"

"Never with you," he swore. And she believed him. God help her, she believed him, and she had expected it to feel unsafe, as if she might fall. Instead, she found that it felt as if she were on completely solid ground.

They both heard the van come to a stop several feet away from them, but neither moved. She could only imagine what the others thought at that moment. Well, they probably thought the truth.

"This changes everything," she warned, giving him a subtle chance to back out.

Though she hadn't really expected him to take it, she felt immense relief when he gave her an assessing glance. "Everything we do changes everything else."

"Is that supposed to be a cryptic answer?" She complained, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"It means I'm with you. How's that for an answer?"

Hardison caught Nate's words as he walked over. "Wait - what does that mean?"

She ignored Hardison and tilted her head slightly, as if considering. "I think it works."

"Good," Nate kissed her forehead, as Hardison rambled on in the background that he felt completely out of the loop.

Tara gave him a stern glance and informed him to shut up, which he completely ignored. "Nobody tells me anything," Hardison said, more to himself than anyone else, as he climbed back into the van. "I'm practically the leader of this group and I'm the last to know everything."

"Leader?" Eliot scoffed, "If we ranked this group on leadership qualities you'd be last. Dead last."

"What?" Hardison argued, "Without me you'd be lost. All of you! The team would cease to exist."

While the two of them bickered, Nate and Parker climbed in the van, only to be met with Tara's knowing smile. "So…whatcha been up to?"

"Maybe we _should _walk home," Nate groaned.

"Now Nate," Parker began, "did you not just remind me that friends can be your family? Why don't you open up to Tara about your feelings."

"You first," he said, while Tara watched in amusement. She really didn't need an explanation. It was obvious for everyone to see.

"What do you think Hardison would do if he caught us making out back here?" Parker asked, pitching her words loudly to ensure the driver could hear them.

"What?" Hardison screeched. "I will drive us into a tree. Don't even try. And so you both know, I'm going to be demanding answers later about what dimension we drove into when we came back to pick you up. I'm halfway convinced the real Nate and Parker are still out there somewhere."

Parker rolled her eyes and Nate patted Hardison on the shoulder. "We're as real as you're going to find. Sorry."

Hardison sighed and then allowed himself to glance back at them, focusing on the blonde woman sitting close to Nate. "In all seriousness, Parker…are you alright? We were worried before…"

Parked glanced around to find that along with Nate and Hardison, both Eliot and Tara were watching her closely, waiting for her answer. She realized they were all on edge. She'd truly worried them.

"I'm…" she swallowed past the sudden ache in her throat. Nate drew his thumb over the back of her hand reassuringly. "I know I'll be okay," she said firmly.

The tension in the van disappeared, and she finally relaxed. Maybe she was wrong before. Maybe friends weren't simply the only family she got – maybe they were the only family she needed. And they were most certainly the only family she wanted.

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I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Feedback is always appreciated.


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